


Loving Liars

by Irena__Rose



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Adoption, Alpha Derek Hale, Alpha Scott McCall, Amnesia, Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, Co-Alphas, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski are Soulmates, First Kiss, First Time, Foster Care, Future Fic, Hale-McCall Pack, Loving Liars, M/M, Magic, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Ozone - Freeform, Piano, Polish Stiles Stilinski, Rebuilding the Hale House, Soulmates, Stiles Stilinski Speaks Polish, Temporary Amnesia, The Hale Fire (Teen Wolf), Warlock Stiles Stilinski, poland - Freeform, polish, spell books
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:21:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23283946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Irena__Rose/pseuds/Irena__Rose
Summary: Stiles always thought that his life changed when his best friend Scott was bitten by a rogue werewolf that fateful night. It was four years later, though, that he realised he had been surrounded by the supernatural for far longer than he had originally thought. When a mysterious book that only he can read turns up in Derek Hale’s loft, he is forced through memories that were buried a long time ago.
Relationships: Derek Hale & Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 39
Kudos: 276





	1. The Book

The book felt strangely familiar, like an old school friend. That was the first thing that Stiles could think of, and he hadn't the faintest idea why. From where it lay on the table it gave out an unusual odour like the smell of the air before a storm comes, fresh and electric. It was very thick, at least eight hundred pages, and was bound in brown leather. Judging by how yellow the edges of the pages were, Stiles guessed it was a hundred years old at the minimum.

Stiles was in Derek's loft, along with Scott, Malia, Isaac, Lydia, Liam, and Derek himself. It was eight o'clock on a Saturday morning, which was far too cruel in Stiles's opinion, but Derek had seemed pretty insistent on the phone that everyone should get there as fast as humanly (or werewolfly) possible.

"So I suppose you're all wondering why I called you all over," Derek stated. An annoyed chorus of agreement echoed from everyone in the room. They were all standing around the table with the book, looking mildly interested but mostly just tired.

"This morning I got up at five o'clock like normal," Stiles's eyes went wide at this, "went for a run around the woods, and then came back to find this book," Derek pointed in its general direction, "on my table."

"Oh my god, I'm so glad you all called us all over Derek, someone broke into your apartment and didn't take anything! Not only that left something too! Good heavens, whatever shall we do!" Stiles dramatically cried out in a high pitched voice. He then pretended to faint onto Scott, who snickered and shoved him back upright.

"Seriously though, why did you bring us all here? So what, someone broke into your place. You're not honestly scared are you?" Malia said.

"Jesus, how stupid are you people? I get Stiles and Lydia not getting it, but those of you with supernatural senses of smell should really have worked out why I'm a bit worried. No-one broke into my apartment. Just take a sniff. All you'll be able to smell are us, and a faded Peter smell. He came by yesterday."

All the were-people took a deep breath in through there noses to see (smell) for themselves that no-one else had been in the apartment. Stiles also took a deep breath in, which got him a few weird looks. He shrugged in response.

"Peter could have left it," Scott suggested.

"No, I'm pretty sure he didn't. I ate dinner on this table after he left and I saw no book. He also denied it when I texted him this morning. Plus, the enigma of whoever left it here isn't the strangest part. I can't pick it up or open it."

Derek reached over and placed a hand on either side of the book and tried to lift it up. Even though his veins became very visible under the strain he was putting his arms through, the book wouldn't budge. Next, he demonstrated the pages being stuck together by attempting to flick through them. Again, nothing happened. The pages remained together like they had been stuck with glue.

"Gravity doesn't work either. Step back and watch."

Derek reached across the table and lifted it upside down. The book remained steadfastly stuck to the table, the pages not even coming apart. After a few seconds of demonstrating, Derek put the table back on the ground.

"Can you each try to remove the book from the table? Coyotes first, then wolves, then banshees, then humans."

Stiles gave a scowl at Derek's order but didn't say anything. Malia tried once to pull it off, but quickly gave up and went to stand back with the others.

Scott went next, pulling on the book with both hands while Derek held the table down. After a few tries, he said, "Man, what's sticking it to the table? That's gotta be some pretty strong glue right there."

Derek responded, "It isn't glued. I would be able to tear it off if it was glue and smell it. All I smell is old book."

Stiles thought that was a bit weird. He could definitely smell some sort of ozone, so why couldn't anyone else? He quickly dismissed the thought though, instead turning his attention to Isaac and Liam both trying to pull it off at the same time. After they both failed, Lydia took a shot at it. Unfortunately, the book remained in place.

"Your go, Stiles. If you can't do it then we go disturb Deaton on a Saturday morning."

Stiles stood up from where he was sitting on the couch and approached the table. He pulled at the book, and, because he was expecting a lot of resistance, fell back to land on his ass when the book came away from the table easily.

As soon as he touched the book, he felt a connection. A strange, unwavering connection, that felt so right at that moment that it almost felt like a trance.

Stiles shook himself off and looked up to six surprised pairs of eyes peering down at him. He registered that his tailbone hurt, and so gathered that he must have fallen pretty hard. Scott offered him a silent hand up, and Stiles took it, clutching the book to his chest. He felt inexplicably protective of the book as if it were a beloved family member.

Stiles swayed slightly when he was stood up. An arm steadied him, but he was too busy focusing on not blacking out to notice who it was.

"Oh. My. God." someone said.

"Open it! Let's see what the book's about." Scott said. There was no telling what it was about from the outside because it didn't have a title on the cover or the spine.

Stiles sat down on the sofa behind him, and Derek soon followed. He ran his hand along the cover and then brought his fingers up under his nose. Again, the distinct smell of ozone reached him.

"Do any of you guys smell that?" Stiles asked.

"Smell what?" Derek said, his eyebrows scrunching together and his lips pursing.

"It smells like just before a storm. I remember asking my mom about it when I was little, and she said it was called ozone. Apparently, people can detect it in quantities as small as one part per one hundred million. You guys should all be able to smell it, it's really strong."

And it was. Now that Stiles had the book in his lap, the scent was almost overwhelming. It wouldn't have surprised him if a cloud formed right above his head and soaked him.

"We can't smell anything Stiles. Maybe we should call Deaton, I don't think this is a normal book. Don't open it yet either." Lydia instructed.

"No, I want to." Answered Stiles. He opened up the book right to the middle, and for a few second all he did was cough because of the small cloud of dust that rose from it. When he looked at what was written his heart jumped a beat and shivers ran up his arms.

Derek leaned towards him and peered at the book. "Huh. There's nothing written down. Try another page."

"What do you mean there's nothing written down? There's loads of stuff written down on the page, it's just in Polish. It says 'Jak odzyskać pamięć. Lekarstwo an częściową amnezję'."

"Oh my god! Since when did you speak Polish? How did I not know about this?" Scott said, eyes wide and a curious smile lighting up his face.

Derek said "Never mind that. Since when did you gain the ability to see invisible words? There's nothing on the page." He grabbed the book from Stiles and showed it to everyone. They all turned to Stiles.

"What did those Polish words mean?" Liam asked.

"They meant 'How to recover memory. A cure for partial amnesia.'" Derek answered. Everyone turned to him now, questions written across their faces.

"Okay, seriously how do both of you know Polish? It's hardly the most common language in America," said Malia.

"I learnt it from my mom before she died. Is it really that much of a surprise? What, did you think my name was actually _Stiles?._ " He chuckled.

"I...honestly have no idea how I know Polish. No one in my family is from Poland or speaks polish, and I would certainly remember learning a whole other language. I only speak English, Spanish, French, and Italian." Derek said.

"Way to subtly show off bro, way to go!" Stiles joked.

"We could try the spell. I mean, it does say it cures amnesia." Lydia suggested.

Derek said "Wait a sec. What other spells does it have? Let's just put a pin in the fact that only Stilinski can read it for a minute, I wanna come back to that later."

Stiles did as he asked, and turned a page. And another. And another. He did so with a reverence no one had seen him show for anything before, and he felt more peaceful than he ever had in the past. And that was saying something considering he had a diagnosed case of ADHD.

"It says the same thing. On every page. The same writing and everything." Stiles told the group. Through only Stiles's eyes, the double-page the spell was written on was packed. It was filled top to bottom with beautiful cursive handwritten notes in a black pen. In some of the margins and on top of some of the lines were neat but tiny polish words written in a different black pen, which Stiles guessed was a previous owner's annotations. Compared to the overall look of the book, the other pen seemed to be a much more recent addition and was probably written within the last few decades.

On one side it showed you actually how to do the spell. It said you need to put your hand on the back of the person who has forgotten something's neck and focus on the magic within you. Stiles had no idea what the hell that meant. It then said you need to visualize all of the memories coming back, one by one until you have all of them. The actual words were, ' _imagine all of the memories being little streams flowing down the side of a mountain, joining together to make a river'._ To help focus, it suggested lighting a candle, much like how they hypnotized Lydia to remember Stiles during the whole Ghost Riders escapade.

On the other side, there was a title of 'Ostrzeżenia!', which Stiles translated as 'Warnings!'. The subtitle was written in red, designed to draw your attention. The only warnings were do not force someone to remember anything, and beware that some things are better left forgotten. The blank space underneath the ominous warnings was decorated with a detailed drawing of a mountain and a river.

"I want to try it. How about you, Derek? We can try to see how you learnt Polish." said Stiles.

Derek nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah. Why not. So, you're going to try it then?"

"Well, yeah. You know, it might be a tiny bit difficult for anyone else because they can't see let alone read the polish." Stiles answered.

"Are you sure this is a good idea, guys? How do we know it's even safe?" Isaac asked.

"I just _know_ it's safe. I don't know why, but I am more sure that this is absolutely something we should do than anything else in all the twenty years I've been on this planet. Trust me." Stiles spoke with so much conviction that you could tell he meant every word.

After a short pause, Derek said "Okay then. Let's go for it."


	2. The Magic

"Right. Umm... turn around and face me then." Stiles said. Derek shifted in his seat.

"What do you have to do? I'm not doing anything too painful." Stiles turned to sit cross legged on the leather sofa.

"Don't worry, it doesn't say anything about it hurting. It probably won't work anyway." Stiles reassured him. He laid the book in between his knees and said, "It says that I need to put my hand on the back of your neck to do it, kinda like how you wolves look into someone else's memories."

Stiles raised his hand halfway to Derek's neck and paused nervously. If Stiles was ever going to be touching Derek in a semi-intimate place then this is certainly not how he imagined it. Not that he ever imagined it, like every night, maybe in the shower. Nope. Derek raised his eyebrows and moved Stiles's hand to the back of his neck himself.

"We're probably gonna look so stupid in a minute, you know." Stiles spoke.

"Maybe not. The book is definitely to do with you in some way, afterall, your the only one who's been able to read it, not to mention the fact that it is in your mother's native language." It was a bit awkward speaking to each other because of Stiles's hand on Derek's neck.

Stiles looked at the book in his lap and said, "Chodź Stiles, możesz to zrobić. Możesz to zrobić." _Come on Stiles, you can do this. You can do this._

"How the hell can I understand you?" Derek asked.

"If you be quiet then I might be able to find out." Stiles snapped.

He closed his eyes. Stiles tried to focus on his internal magic like the book said. He didn't really understand what that meant though, so instead he just tried to relax and focus on himself, and the hand that connected himself to Derek. After a few moments the smell of ozone became thicker in the air. After about half a minute it got so thick it became nearly suffocating. He thought about lost memories, _zagubione wspomnienia_. He imagined them all coming back.

And then suddenly, he was soaking wet. Completely soaking wet. He was underwater, and being pushed around by a very strong current that was stopping him from getting to the surface. He couldn't breathe, and his eyes were scrunched up to avoid getting any water in them. He could hear voices around him, but only snatches of what they were saying. He heard children singing and shouting and crying and screaming. It was all too much, his senses were flooded.

Stiles felt himself panicking. He kicked as hard as he could in the direction he thought was the surface, but it was no use. Just before he thought he was most certainly going to die though, he could breathe.

Stiles took in deep lungfuls of air. He was back in the loft, and was dimly aware of someone holding his head and turning his ears forwards. The world was blurry, but the black spots that had been smothering his vision slowly started to recede. Stiles grabbed onto the arms attached to the hands on either side of his face, but didn't try and move them. He felt his heart pounding as loud as a drum in his ears with the adrenaline running through his veins.

It took him a minute, but eventually Stiles became fully aware of where he was and what was happening. He was sitting on the sofa in the loft with his hands clutching at Derek Hale's arms whilst his ex-girlfriend Lydia was trying to get him to drink some water. Derek had dropped his hands from Stiles's head at some point, so Stiles was now just holding his forearms in his lap and breathing heavily.

"I'm okay. I'm okay. I just did the spell wrong, that's all." Stiles informed.

"What the hell happened, Stiles? You stopped breathing for two and a half minutes! Your lips turned blue! And Derek just sort of slumped back against the sofa and came around a few seconds before you started gasping like a drowning man!" Scott shouted. His eyes were red like he had been holding back tears.

"I know what I did wrong. I tried to make the memories come back all together, so I was just overwhelmed. There is a lot of stuff buried, Derek, a helluva lot of stuff. We really need to see what it is, like, now." Stiles addressed everyone.

"No way. Nuh-uh. Not gonna happen. That looked way too dangerous." Scott said.

"I'll be fine Scott, and Derek's an evolved alpha werewolf. He'll be fine." Derek had become an alpha a year after the war with the humans in Beacon Hills. Apparently Derek had had a really old distant great-uncle he didn't know about who was living on a ranch in Texas. The old guy was an alpha, and he killed himself because his wife had died and he couldn't handle the loneliness. The old man knew about Derek, and wrote a letter to him a week before it happened so he would know why suddenly his eyes glowed red. That didn't make it any less of a surprise though.

Stiles finally realised that he was still holding Derek's forearms way too tightly, so he let go.

"Are you sure about this Stiles?" Derek asked.

"To zależy, jesteś pewien?" _That depends, are you sure about this?  
_

"Ufam ci." _I trust you_. The words came out of Derek's mouth like they were second nature.

"Okay, let's try again."

Stiles replaced his left hand over Derek's neck. Derek leaned into the touch, and then they both shut their eyes.

Stiles focused on his heartbeat, and like before, where he was touching Derek. The smell of ozone increased again, and this time, he thought of just a small, mysterious, stream-like memory. And what he found was astonishing.

* * *

Stiles felt that he was actually there. He felt the ground beneath his feet, the warm air in his lungs, and the sun on his skin. He was fully immersed in Derek's memory. Stiles felt a little guilty for being there, as if he was eavesdropping on someone's conversation.

He was watching a much younger version of Derek playing in the grass with a toy airplane. Derek was probably only around four years old. He ran around with his arms outstretched and he made whooshing noises. Unlike the Derek Hale he had come to know, this one was full of bright smiles and relaxed eyebrows.

Stiles watched like a ghost. He was there, and yet no-one was able to see him. A silent witness. He stood in a clearing surrounded by trees on one side, and on the other was a house. The pre-arson Hale house to be precise.

Sitting to the side of the clearing on a picnic blanket was someone Stiles didn't recognise. She looked to be about twelve years old, maybe a bit younger. The girl had dark brown hair, hazel eyes, and a pointed chin.

Stiles heard the young Derek Hale say "Play with me Laura, pleeeaaase!"

Laura flashed her golden eyes at her baby brother and said, "No."

Stiles felt a bit queasy to see Laura alive. The last time he had seen her she had been dead in the ground, and only half of her was there.

A noise from inside made Stiles turn his head. He saw a woman who looked a lot like Laura come out, so he assumed that this was Talia Hale. In her arms she held a tiny baby wrapped in a white blanket, probably Cora. And behind her was Stiles's mom.

Claudia Stilinski, who had been dead for over a decade. And from the looks of her belly, she was pregnant. Her hair was long and her skin was clear. Her eyes were bright and she wore a teal maternity dress over her large bump. She showed no sign of the unstable woman that Stiles had memories of, she just seemed like a normal woman, over at a friends house.

The two women sat down on chairs around a glass table in front of the house. They sipped tea and ate biscuits out of a tin and chatted about normal things like how Claudia was doing being so heavily pregnant.

At least it was normal until a twenty-something year old Peter ran out of the house on all fours chasing a laughing and screaming toddler. Peter had wolfed-out, and apparently this was a source of great entertainment for Derek and the toddler. The toddler managed to shift, and it didn't creep Stiles out as much as he thought it would to see a wolfed-out kid.

From the table both his mother and Talia laughed. His mom knew about the supernatural. And was friends with the Hales. Stiles wondered how much more she knew.

Out from the doorway came a woman who looked just a bit younger than Peter. She wore a pair of jeans and a striped t-shirt that would look outdated nowadays, but was still pretty.

"Peter, make sure you look after our son! He may be a wolf but he definitely isn't as strong as you!" the lady who was probably Peter's girlfriend or fiancée or wife said. If that child was Peter's then that means that he probably died in the fire. A new respect and feeling of sympathy for Peter blossomed in Stiles's chest. He mentally forgave him for killing those hunters when he came out of the coma.

Before his eyes, the memory started to turn grey in colour. The voices faded out and he felt like he was drifting through time and space at the same time as staying absolutely still. The memory disappeared, and a new one grew in its place.


	3. The Memories

In the new memory both of Stiles's parents were at the door of the Hale house. It was pitch black outside. Without them having to knock Talia opened the door and ushered them in. "How long have you been in labour?"

"About an hour. I woke up and my water had broken." Claudia's face contorted in pain as another contraction hit her. With Talia's help she went in and allowed herself to be led into a bedroom on the first floor. Stiles followed wordlessly.

Claudia screamed. Talia pushed Noah Stilinski out of the doorway and shouted, "Peter! Elijah! Get down here!"

Talia then sat Claudia down on the bed with her back leaning against some pillows. She took the labouring woman's hand in her own and black veins crawled up her arm like ink had been injected into her bloodstream. "Are you ready to do the spell?" Talia asked.

"Yes. Step back from me, the pain is more manageable now." Claudia raised her hands from where they had been gripping the sheets and placed them on her belly.

Noah pushed in.

"Are you okay? Are you about to do the spell?" Stiles's dad asked. He looked so much younger now. His hair was a dirty blonde colour and his face lacked the wrinkles that aged him in Stiles's present.

"Yes. Now be quiet, I do actually need to focus a bit." Claudia took a deep breath and then the smell of ozone filled the room. Stiles felt the magic so much more strongly than before. He began to see what the book meant when it said to focus on the magic within himself.

Stiles realised then that his Dad was still in the room with them. He briefly thought that maybe his Dad had known about the supernatural all along, but then decided that that was very unlikely. When Stiles had told him about it he had seemed completely shocked and disbelieving. Plus, what reason would he have for pretending that he didn't already know?

Claudia let out one drawn out groan, and then her expression cleared of all pain. She relaxed her shoulders and her teeth left where they had been embedded in her lip.

"So, that's it? Now there's no more pain?" Peter said from where he was lurking in the doorway.

"Yes, that's it. I also transferred about a quarter of my power to the baby."

"So, now the baby's stronger but you're weaker. Why would you do that?" Peter asked.

"Because I love my son and I want him to be as strong as possible. If anything were to happen to me I've already made sure that he and he only inherits my power. Kind of like a magical will." another face peered around the door.

"Are you okay, Mrs Stilinski? You smell like pain." the adorable young Derek asked.

"I'm fine, my darling. You should go back to sleep."

"Okay, but can I get a cookie first?" Derek spoke.

"Come with me, little man. I'll get you one." Peter picked up Derek like he weighed nothing at all and carried him out. He seemed so much more caring and kind back then.

"I'm going to start pushing. Where's Elijah? He needs to be here to make sure everything's okay."

"I can hear him, he's just getting changed. Elijah please hurry up, I know you can hear me!" Talia spoke at a normal volume, but Talia's husband must be a were-creature.

"I have to start pushing now. It should all be over in a few minutes." Claudia gripped the bed.

A man came through the doorway. The appearance of who he assumed to be Mr Hale was startlingly like Derek. They were so similar that if Stiles hadn't spent hours thinking of Derek, and his face, and his body, and other things, that he would have probably mistaken the two family members for one another.

"Okay Claudia, sorry it took me so long to get down here. How are you doing?"

"I'm fine, doc. No pain, but I still can't wait to get him out!" Stiles was surprised to find out that Derek's dad was a doctor. He would have thought he was a businessman or something equally boring.

"Well keep pushing then, he's nearly crowning." Stiles turned away. He didn't want to see the inside of his mother.

Claudia started breathing heavily, and after a few minutes she said, "Is he nearly here?"

"Yes, just one more shoulder and then the rest is easy. Come on, you can do it!" Dr Hale spoke.

This was really weird. Stiles was actually witnessing his own birth. He wondered what Derek was seeing right now.

The piercing wail of an infant rang out through the air, and the memory changed.

* * *

"Meet Mieczysław, Laura."

Claudia held out the child to the thirteen-year-old. She took him and cradled him awkwardly against her chest.

"Is he a witch?" she asked.

"He will gain his powers when he's ready, and only of he deserves them. And because he's a boy, he will probably want to be called a Warlock. It's the masculine version of witch." Jesus. Stiles really wishes his mom was still alive to explain all of this to him.

"Why doesn't he get his powers immediately, like us weres? Cora can already shift, but she hasn't grown her canines in yet." Derek asked.

"Because witch-folk are a lot more powerful than were-folk. If he got all of his powers immediately then he could easily kill half of the population of America. Instead, his powers will lay dormant until he's mature enough to use them. That means that he could get them when he's eighteen, or eighty. It's different for everyone."

Claudia took mercy on the awkward teenage Laura and took her son back into her arms.

"How do you say his name?" Derek stood on his tip-toes to peer at the alien little bundle.

"It's quite tricky. Copy what I say: Mee."

"Mee."

"Yeh."

"Yeh."

"Chi."

"Chi."

"Svav."

"Svav."

"Mee-yeh."

"Mee-yeh."

"Chi-Svav."

"Chi-Svav."

"Mee-yeh-chi-Svav."

"Mischief."

Claudia chuckled. "That's close enough, kochanie, that's close enough. How about you just call him that until you learn how to pronounce it."

"Can I hold him?"

Claudia hesitated. "Okay, but sit down first."

Derek sat down on the sofa. It was an old sofa in the Stilinski household that they had to throw out when an episode of projectile vomiting left it with a smell that no amount of washing could get rid of. Claudia handed the eager boy the new born.

"Make sure you support his head!" she spoke. Derek did as instructed.

"Hello Mischief. I'm your bro Derek. I promise to buy you beer when I turn twenty-one."

Even Laura laughed at that. The last thing Stiles saw before the memory ended was Derek grinning wide enough to show tiny but still sharp canines dangling from the top of his mouth.

* * *

"Derek! You're scaring him!" Cora shouted. They looked several years older now, Derek was probably six and Laura fourteen.

"I'm not! Smell him! No fear, see?" Derek was sitting cross-legged in front of two toddlers. Stiles was pretty sure that one of them was himself; he recognised the infant from photos. The other one must be Cora.

Derek was playing peek-a-boo with baby Stiles and his sister. However, instead of making funny faces like a normal person, he turned into his beta form and back again. Baby Stiles laughed and squealed in delight.

"I'm sorry but we've got to go now, Derek. We're coming back next week though!" Claudia said.

She bent down and scooped the toddler into her arms and cooed, "Wkrótce znów zobaczysz Dereka, Corę i Laurę, kochanie, nie martw się. Teraz pójdziemy zobaczyć się z tatą w biurze policji. Pożegnaj się, skarbie. Pa pa!" _Soon you will see Derek, Cora and Laura again, my love, don't worry. Now we'll go see your dad in the police office. Say goodbye, sweetheart. Bye Bye!_

"Were you talking Polish again, Mrs Stilinski?" Derek asked.

"Yes. I want to make sure that little Mischief knows how to speak it when he's older. It's quite a tricky language to learn unless you learn it when you're very little."

"I'm going to learn it some day. It sounds cool when you speak it."

"I'm sure you will, Derek. I'm just going to say goodbye to your mom and dad." Claudia's accent was still slightly prominent back then. She had immigrated to America only six year's previously.

"Bye!"


	4. The Ancestor

"How do you say 'my name is Derek' in Polish?" Stiles had been watching the back and forth of translations for some time now. He had watched dozens of memories by now, all including either himself or one of his parents. In this one Derek was nine, making Stiles four or five.

"Mam na imię Derek." the two boys walked through the woods, with twenty-year-old Stiles following behind. Derek was kicking a small rock along the path with them, chasing after it if it went too far.

The ground was covered in brown, yellow and red leaves and the trees were bare. It was one of those boring days that took over many days of the colder months. The sky was grayish-white, and the temperature around fifteen degrees. It was like mother nature just got up and decided, I'm not going to bother today. Nope. Today I'm not going to paint the sky blue or make the birds sing, I'm just going to set Beacon Hills to default mode.

"Can you teach me some piano? I will teach you Polish and you teach me piano and then we can show off to Cora, Laura, and Chase!" the childish excitement lit up his face. Chase was Peter's son. The choice of name had made him laugh when he first heard it.

"Tak." _yes_.

"You remembered! Dobra robota!"

"What does that mean?" Derek looked a little bit disappointed that he didn't already know.

"It means well done. Do you know where we are? I don't."

"Not really, but I'll just track our scents back home." Derek kicked the rock into a bramble bush and huffed. "I can't teach you next Sunday. I've got to go with my mom somewhere."

The look in little Stiles's eyes was heartbreaking. "But we see each other every Sunday."

"I've got to go away because now I'm old enough that the full moon will effect me, and I haven't learned to control the shift yet. Next Sunday is the full moon. I wouldn't want to hurt you or my family, so that's why my mom's taking me. So I can learn to control it."

"How long will it be until you can control it?"

"I don't know. Laura managed it really quickly, after the first four moon-cycles. But it took my dad until he was seventeen."

"I hope you learn quickly. Hope in polish is nadzieja."

"Nad-jay-ah. Is that right?"

"Close enough. I'm cold, lets go back. Race you!" Stiles laughed at his younger-self's stupidity at challenging a were to a race. Derek overtook him almost immediately, but then slowed down and picked up the younger kid and put him on his shoulders.

Once again, the memory disintegrated. However this time, it didn't completely go. Not only did he have the memory of watching it just now in the third person. In the back of his mind, he could faintly remember the day from his own point of view. He didn't have much time to dwell on it though, because the next memory was here, and it was begging Stiles to listen.

* * *

Now Stiles and Derek were in the Hale house again. It still felt uncanny to be seeing it in all of its glory before Kate (AKA, the devil in a dress) burned it. A few notes on a piano rang out in the air, playing a simple nursery rhyme.

"Just put your fingers like that..." Derek's unbroken voice spoke from behind him.

"Like this?" Little Stiles pressed down on the piano, copying the tune Derek just played.

"Yes, that's right."

"Piano is _fortepian_ in polish."

"Cool." Derek said.

Laura was texting on a flip-phone in the corner. Stiles had seen her turn into an evolved beta in a previous vision, and ever since couldn't get the thought of her torso rotting in the ground out of his head.

This memory dragged on for a while. Eventually Stiles got both hands under raps and was playing. Then his younger self started to sing.

_Mrugaj, mrugaj gwiazdko ma  
_ _Cudna jest uroda twa  
_ _Leć wysoko w niebo leć  
_ _Jak diamencik jasno świeć  
Mrugaj, mrugaj gwiazdko ma  
_ _Cudna jest uroda twa  
_

_Mrugaj, mrugaj gwiazdko ma  
_ _Cudna jest uroda twa  
Leć wysoko w niebo leć  
_ _Jak diamencik jasno świeć  
Mrugaj, mrugaj gwiazdko ma  
Cudna jest uroda twa  
_

_Mrugaj, mrugaj gwiazdko ma  
_ _Cudna jest uroda twa  
Leć wysoko w niebo leć  
Jak diamencik jasno świeć  
Mrugaj, mrugaj gwiazdko ma  
Cudna jest uroda twa_

The memory of his mom singing this to him nearly made him cry.

* * *

"There's another witch in beacon hills." the words flooded out of Claudia's mouth. Her hair was in disarray and she had a strange pale purple aura.

"I'm sorry what?" This time they were in the kitchen of the Stilinski household. Stiles's dad was just sitting at the kitchen table looking over some police files, and a seven year old Stiles sat playing video games in the sitting room.

"I've called Talia, all the Hale's are coming over here now. O Boże, this is very, very bad." Claudia opened a cupboard and pulled out a basket full of glass bottles. Inside most of them were different plants. In a few however, Stiles saw things like claws, and butterfly wings.

"Who is it?" his dad asked.

"My nine times great-grandfather. And he's angry."

"Why?" spoke Noah.

"I stole the spell book from him before I came to America. He was very angry. I cannot copy everything down, there are millions of spells in here, and I have to think of each and every one."

Young Stiles came in.

"What's wro- mama why are you glowing?" the sheriff looked confused.

"Only you can see it Mieczysław. It's a protection spell. I'm going to do one on everyone when they get here. They should only be a few minutes now, just you wait." she took out a small glass jar with a feather in it. Then she reached back into the cupboard and pulled out the leather book he had on his lap in grown-up Derek's loft. She opened it in the middle and started reading.

"Did you open to the right page on the first try?" Noah Stilinski asked.

"Yes. All I have to do is think of a spell and it automatically becomes the one you see on the page."

"Cool." young Stiles said.

"Do you need me to get mountain ash?" Noah offered.

"No. Mountain ash doesn't work against witch-folk. We created the stuff. Only ourselves and occasionally a true-alpha can pass through."

"What defence do you have then?"

"My magic. He has lots of magic too though, more than me. He is nearing two-thousand years old. As far as I am aware he is the most powerful being in this universe. There is only one spell that might work, but it will kill him."

"What is it?"

"I have to get him to give me all of his power."

"Why would he do that? He hates you. Can't you just talk to him about it?" the sheriff walked up to his wife.

"No. I did an unforgivable thing, stealing that book. And he tries to kill all of his magical descendants to inherit their power. If he doesn't then he will die."

"Why would he die?"

"Because of his age. He has used magic to prolong his life for far too long. It's unnatural, even by supernatural standards. I have prolonged my life for a while, but nowhere near as long as him."

"What do you mean? How old are you?!" Noah looked shocked at this revelation.

"I was born in the year 1876. Don't think about that too much though. I think the Hales are hear, I can hear the car." Stiles couldn't believe that. His mom was really that old?

He tried to cling on to this memory for a few more seconds, but it slipped away like a stream into a river. Just like in the more recent visions, Stiles remembered the first-person memory as well. He realised that Derek wasn't present at all in this vision, and the same had gone for quite a few of the previous ones. These were no longer just Derek's memories, but his as well.

* * *

Now he was standing in the woods. He watched an exchange between his mother and an ancient looking man from next to a tree about twenty feet away.

"Czego chcesz Kazimierz?" _What do you want Kazimierz?_ his mother asked.

"Książka, twoja moc i moc twojego syna. Wiesz to, Claudia." _The book, your power, and your son's power. You know that, Claudia._ the old man spoke. His voice was as soft as silk; as gentle as a mother with her newborn. He had a beard down to his chest of snow-white hair, and eyes the colour of a storm cloud.

"Możesz mieć książkę i moc mojego syna. Nie możesz mieć mojego, umrę bez niego." _You can have the book and my son's power. You can't have mine though, I die without it._ What was his mother saying? Surely she wouldn't let this man take his power. She wouldn't do that, would she?

"Potrzebuję was obu. Ukradłeś mi moją książkę, i tak bym cię zabił. Zabiję małego Mieczysława, jeśli nie będziesz współpracować. Twój wybór. Umierasz, a twój syn żyje jak człowiek, albo oboje umrzecie. Prosty." _I need both of you. You stole my book from me, I would have killed you anyway. I will kill little Mieczysław if you don't cooperate. Your choice. You die and your son lives like a human or you both die. Simple._ Stiles watched in horror as his ancestor stepped closer to his mother.

"Jak mogłeś to zrobić. Zabiłeś wszystkich swoich potomków tylko po to, aby żyć coraz dłużej. Czy tak bardzo boisz się śmierci? _" How could you do this. You have killed all of your descendants just to live longer and longer. Do you really fear death that much_?

"Przestań zwlekać. Daj mi swojego syna, albo go wezmę. Teraz." _Stop stalling. Give me your son or I'll take him. Now._

Claudia walked away from Kazimierz over to where Talia was standing with his younger self.

"What's he going to do mama? Can't you beat him?" the child had tears in his eyes and was visibly shaking.

"Don't worry, kochanie. It will all be over soon. Come on, take my hand." Stiles let go of Talia's arm and grabbed his mom's outstretched hand.

"Are you sure about this, Claudia? What are you doing?" Talia didn't speak polish, so she didn't know what was going on.

"I'm sure. Stay near." the mother and son walked hand in hand.

"Does yourself Polish speak?" Kazimierz asked in unpractised and messy English to Stiles.

"Ja mówie po polsku." _I speak polish._ The words came out weak and stuttering.

"Dobry. Chcę powiedzieć przepraszam za to, co zamierzam zrobić. Nie mogę powiedzieć, że tego żałuję." _Good. I want to say sorry for what I'm going to do. I can't say I regret it though._ A stream of ozone and electricity so thick and strong it was visible to the naked eye flowed from his young self's body. The child fell to his knees, and the warlock's eyes glowed a white-purple colour.

Just when Stiles was giving up hope on his mother doing anything to stop it, she started chanting. The words sounded slavic, but they weren't a modern dialect. An ancient one then. She held up both hands, palms facing the other spell-caster. Stiles was hit with an electric shock coming up through the ground. Kazimierz's eyes stopped glowing, and instead he collapsed and landed on his knees as well.

Young Stiles went completely unconscious and fell to the side and landed on his cheek. His mother stepped closer to the ancient man, and redirected her hands to face the space between her son and her grandfather. She kept on chanting, and Stiles saw the flow of ozone change direction. It was now coming out of Kazimierz and into himself.

Stiles lost track of how long the spell lasted, but when it stopped the affect on the old man was immediate.

His skin turned grey and his eyes sank in. His hair fell out and he appeared to lose pounds of fat and muscle until he looked emaciated. He started disintegrating into ash before his very eyes, as if he was made of a grey sand. Half a minute after the spell ended, all that was left of him was a pile of his old clothes.


	5. The Spell

"How do you feel?" Elijah directed the question at Claudia.

"Where's Mieczy?" She was laying down on the same bed he had seen her give birth in.

"Safe. He's with Derek and Cora, Peter's watching over them. How do you feel?"

"I've got a headache."

"How bad?" Elijah frowned.

"Nothing I can't fix." she said. She put her hands up to her temples and her forehead creased in concentration. She kept like that for half a minute before giving up and resting her hands back down by her sides.

"Feel better?" Elijah asked.

"No. I feel exactly the same." confusion was written across her face.

"Did you do the spell right?"

"Of course I did, I've done that spell hundreds of times before, it's easy. Oh god, I need to try something. Do you have the spell book?"

"Here." Elijah took the book from inside the bedside table and placed it in her hands.

"Thank you, Eli." she leant her face towards the book and took a deep breath in through her nose. A panicked look fell over her and she opened the book to a random page, one that Stiles could see was full of writing. She turned to another one, and then another.

"I can't see anything on the pages. Get Mieczysław down here." she continued turning pages.

"Derek has already sent him down. He was eaves dropping." Eli said.

Young Stiles came through the door and sat up on the bed next to his mom.

Claudia opened the book in front of Stiles and asked, "Can you see writing on these pages?"

"Yes, why?" his hair was buzzed short.

"It doesn't matter, kochanie. Can you smell the magic coming off it?"

"Ozone? Yeah, I can. Derek says that now I have the power from the old man, is that true mama?"

"Yes, moja miłość. You can't use it yet, though. You have to be older."

"How old?"

"The universe will give you your power when you are ready. Go back to Derek now, I'll see you soon." Mischief left.

"What is it, Claudia?" Eli asked her.

"I did the spell wrong, not only did Mischief get Kazimierz's power, I also gave him mine. My power, it's gone."

"Is it reversible?"

"I would need magic to reverse it. And I don't have any anymore."

"So now you can just live life as a human, right?"

"No, Eli. I was born in 1876. That puts me at 127 years old. I'm going to die, Elijah." she spoke in a voice so soft that no prying ears from upstairs could hear.

"There must be something we can do to stop it. We can find another witch-"

"No. That would put everyone in danger. At the most I have a year to live."

Elijah paced. "I'm sorry, that can't happen. No, I will not allow it." his stubbornness rivalled his son's at that moment.

"I'm so sorry. In the next few months I'm going to become a completely different person. I won't act like I normally do, I will completely lose my ability to empathise with people, and I could even become violent. You need to find an illness that has the same symptoms and forge medical records to leave that as cause of death."

"This is ridiculous Claudia. You can't lose hope-"

"Did Talia tell you what happened to Kazimierz? He dissolved into dust. I'm thankful that I'm young enough that I can at least spend a few normal months with my son and my husband before I lose myself. I don't want to waste those months looking for a cure that doesn't exist. Kazimierz looked for centuries, millenniums even, and he turned up with nothing. Don't do the same."

Stiles felt sick. His mother didn't die of Frontotemporal Dementia, she died because she lost the magic that kept her alive and looking young for over a century. He understood then why the book said some memories are best left forgotten. He didn't want to know that the power that could have saved his mother was locked inside of him, inaccessible until now.

"Do you want me to bring in Noah and Mischief?" Eli offered.

"No. I'm going to tell Noah tomorrow, and then we're going to work out how to tell Mieczy together. You need to start looking for an illness to fake. Don't tell your family anything yet."

"I won't. Jesus Claudia, is this really happening?" Eli's eyes were red.

"I can't believe it either. I always knew this could happen though, it happened to my babcia and my dziadek when I was a little girl. That's my grandma and grandpa, sorry."

"Do you want to come out onto the grass outside? Martha has made pizzas." Elijah asked. Martha was Peter's wife, Stiles witnessed their marriage in an earlier memory. They had been having some marital problems when Chase was a toddler, which Stiles assumed resulted in Malia. But Martha was human, and brought out the best in Peter. In Stiles's opinion they were end game.

"I would love to. This can be a great memory before things start to go bad up here." his mom pointed at her head.

"Let's go then." Elijah said. The memory faded into a sea of nothingness yet again.

* * *

"She didn't know who I was, Derek." So many memories had come and gone since Stiles found out the real reason for his mom's death. Now he was eight years old, and his mom was in hospital being treated for something untreatable.

"I know." the two boys were lying in Derek's bed on the upstairs floor of the Hale house. Stiles had just witnessed his mother accusing him of plotting to murder her.

"Is it all my fault, Derek? Did I do this to her?" young Stiles was crying slightly.

"No. Absolutely not. She made a mistake in a spell, and it is killing her. But I know that if she had to choose between dying and letting Kazimierz continue his spell, she would choose death again. Imagine if you had a child, I'm sure you'd do the same thing."

Stiles saw a full moon sitting behind a tree outside the window.

"When did you learn how to deal with the full moon?"

"When I realised that you were my anchor."

"Oh." Oh my god. Stiles was Derek's first anchor.

"How long do you think she has?"

"I don't know Mischief. It's been ten months since the spell, it might not be that much longer." Derek was always brutally honest.

"You are the only one who doesn't sugar coat anything. I like that." Mischief whispered.

"Sugar coating doesn't fix anything. We should try and sleep now, it's past two o'clock judging by the moon." Derek spoke.

"Okay. Dobranoc, Derek. Słodkie sny." _Goodnight, Derek. Sweet dreams._

"Dobranoc, Mischief. Do zobaczenia rano." _Goodnight, Mischief. See you in the morning._

Stiles wriggled up into Derek's chest, and Derek threw a protective arm around him. The night faded.

* * *

"No!" the cry Stiles let out was loud enough to make a werewolf's ears ring. Peter had an arm around his waist, restraining him from the doctor who had just told him and his father that Claudia Stilinski had passed away.

"No. No no no no no. I'm not ready, I'm not ready for this!" Mischief shouted. He settled down after a few minute of looking like he was going to kill the doctor, and Peter let go. He ran into his dad's arms and they both sobbed.

Talia, Elijah, and Laura were also there. Laura had really grown up, she was now in her late teens. Talia let out muffled cries into Elijah; she and Claudia had been very close friends.

"She can't be dead. She can't. I haven't even got to middle school yet." Mischief wasn't crying now, he just looked shocked. Stiles had a different version of this memory, one without the Hales there.

"I know, I know." Stiles admired his father's strength to comfort his son after just hearing that the love of his life was dead.

The pain of this memory was too great, so he tried to pull himself out if it. It worked, but the next memory was even more painful.

* * *

Most of the people standing around his mother's coffin were strangers. All of the Hale's were there though, and his grandparents. He stood next to Derek whilst his dad said worthless things like how his mother had stayed strong until the very end. At the end of his mom's life, she was always between begging people to kill her and accusing people of plotting her murder. In Stiles's mind, his mom died on her last good day, four months ago.

"May I invite Laura Hale to sing Amazing Grace for us." the priest said. Laura stood up and went to the head of his mother's coffin. She wore a modest black dress with a single red rose pinned above her breast. Her red-brown hair was done up into a bun at the back of her head, and she wore a 1950s style black hat with a veil.

She sang the words beautifully, but young Stiles barely processed them. He had never felt grief like this before. Derek wrapped his arm around Stiles and pulled him into his side. He also had tears running down his face.

His mother's gravestone was the same.

**Claudia Maja Stilinski**

**1962-2004**

**Beloved mother, wife, and friend**

**Will be remembered in the hearts of her loved ones forever**

After the funeral, they all went back to the Stilinski house for the wake. Stiles got into one of the limos undetected and started crying along with everyone else. It was awful having to go through all of these memories again just to see the altered versions.

Once in the house, he followed after his younger self for a while. Eventually Derek came up to him and said, "Do you want to get out of here?"

Mischief nodded once and took Derek's hand. He allowed himself to be pulled out of the crown of nobodies all saying that they were so sorry for his loss, and out onto the street.

They walked in silence all the way into the woods. It reminded Stiles of the memory of them walking together and learning Polish, except the atmosphere now was a lot more sombre.

"I can't deal with this, Derek." such awful words for an eight-year-old to say.

"Not right now. But eventually, it will get easier." Stiles reminded himself that Derek was only thirteen himself.

"Have you ever been in this part of the woods before?" All three of them looked around. Stiles gasped when he saw the giant tree stump better known as the Nemeton close by.

"No, I haven't. That's odd, I could have sworn that I'd been in every part of these woods a hundred times. I've never seen this tree stump before." they walked up to it.

"I'm going to climb it." Mischief clambered up. He stood and looked around to Derek. They were eye-level; Derek had a huge growth spurt last year leaving him nearly the same height as adult Derek.

Mischief started crying then. He hadn't properly cried since he found out about his mother's death, and now it all flooded out in huge, hyperventilating cries. He fell to his hands and knees. Stiles remembered now, today was his first panic attack.

Derek tried to bring him into his arms to comfort him, but Mieczysław just kept pushing him away. The Nemeton's rings began to glow purple-white beneath his hands and knees, and then his eyes did the same. Derek stepped back in shock at what was happening. Mieczysław continued hyperventilating until he couldn't help but let out a scream.

Stiles knew this wasn't a normal scream. He fell back with the force of it and landed flat on his back. He could see a bright flash of purple-white above him stretching in all directions like lightning, and then suddenly the everything stopped. The screaming ceased; the sky returned to normal.

"Excuse me, what's your name?" Stiles sat up and saw Derek ask his younger self.

"Umm... my name's... uhh... Stiles. My names Stiles." realisation dawned on him.

"Are you lost?" Derek didn't recognise the boy he'd known for the last eight years.

"Yeah. I was just at my mom's funeral and I came out here. Do you know the way back to the main road?" Little Stiles didn't recognise Derek either.

"I'm so sorry about your mom, Stiles. Of course, I'll help you back." the two strangers started walking away, and the last memory faded.


	6. The Awakening

He couldn't believe it. The Hales had been such an important part of his life up until he was eight, and he had accidentally erased them from his memory. Not only that, he had erased the Hale's memories of him, and all evidence of the supernatural from his mind.

When he stepped on the Nemeton, the power of it must have allowed him to briefly access his own magic. In the moment he felt so guilty for his mother's death that he needed to change the very memory of it in his mind.

And Derek. His best friend growing up. The one who comforted him whilst his mother was in hospital screaming at doctors and nurses. They had gone through so much together throughout the last four years, and they didn't even remember each other until now.

Stiles thought there was no use putting off waking up any longer, so he guided his mind back to the loft.

* * *

He flickered his eyes open. Stiles's hand was still on Derek's neck.

"Mischief?" Derek looked at Stiles.

"Yeah. Yeah, it's me Der. It's me." Stiles pulled Derek into a bone-crushing hug.

"Holy shit guys, they're awake!" Scott shouted from across the room. Stiles didn't let go of Derek.

"What happened? What did you remember?" Liam asked.

"So much. So, so much." Derek spoke. The two guys let go of each other reluctantly to face everyone.

"How long have we been gone?" Stiles asked.

"Fifteen hours. We were getting so worried about you two." Lydia said. Neither Stiles or Derek expected it to be so much time.

"Seriously, what did you remember?" Liam repeated.

"Misch- Stiles and I were childhood friends."

"Oh my god, really?" Isaac asked.

"Yeah. I was also friends with Laura, Cora, and some other Hales." Stiles confirmed.

"Well that's _weird_." Isaac said.

"Oh god, the fire." The full force of the tragedy hit him then. Laura, who he had grown to love like the sister he never had was dead. Talia was dead. Elijah was dead. Martha and Chase were dead.

Stiles realised he was sobbing and breathing in short gasps. He thought of the Hales like they were family, pack. And most of them were dead. Derek pulled him into another hug.

"Please can you come back tomorrow morning. We've got a lot to process right now and Stiles just found out that his old pack is mostly dead. All of you go. Even you, Scott."

"I'm so sorry. We will come round for lunch tomorrow." Scott said. His eyes were creased in an annoyingly sympathetic expression. The pack left wordlessly, leaving Derek and Stiles alone.

"I'm going to kill Kate." Stiles said the words with a finality that left little room for argument.

"No, you're not. You are going to sit here and talk with me, and then you're going to cast a locator spell in the morning. Then we can get Peter and Cora and kill her all together."

"Seriously?"

"Maybe." Derek spoke softly. They both sat there contemplating the idea for a long while.

"So I wiped your memories of me?" Stiles couldn't believe how much of his history he had forgotten.

"Yes. I wish you hadn't. We could have known each other when we were teenagers."

"Would you have still threatened to rip my throat out with your teeth?" Derek turned red.

"Sorry about that. You were being a bit of a jackass though, you've got to admit."

"I was not!" Stiles said indignantly.

"You were refusing to help me when I was dying!"

"Oh yeah. Fair enough, I was being a jackass." Stiles imagined what would have happened if he hadn't wiped their memories.

"What time is it?" the younger man asked.

Derek checked his watch. "It's half eleven. Jesus we have been sitting here for a long time."

"We had several years worth of memories to go through. I'm surprised it didn't take longer."

"You do realise that you are the most powerful supernatural creature on earth, right?" Derek asked.

Stiles had not realised that. The thought of all that power, all that responsibility, terrified him. It was like he had just been given the button to all of the nuclear detonators on earth, and had been told to keep it safe.

"Holy crap that's terrifying. I wish my mom was here to help."

"You'll be great. You're the most selfless guy I know, well except for Scott, but his levels of selflessness is pretty annoying. The pack will ground you if you ever start getting too bigheaded. You're not invincible."

"I wish I was properly part of the pack. I mean, I get that they care for me the same amount and all, but you were-folk can feel each other through the bond. Me, Lydia, Corey and Mason are part of the pack, but we don't feel it like you do."

"I don't feel it either. I feel a blood connection to Peter, Cora, and Malia, but that's it. I lost the bond with Isaac when I became a beta, so I don't have a pack bond with anyone."

"I'm so sorry. I didn't know that."

"W porządku. I wonder if _you_ can create the bond."

"What do you mean?" Stiles questioned.

"In that big magic book. It could have a spell in it to create the pack bond between people who would not normally be able to do so. Have a look."

The book had migrated its way onto the floor at some point, but was undamaged. Stiles picked it up and opened it.

"Yeah, there's one right here. It's weird how this book always opens on the page you want."

"Thank god it does. Imagine having to go through all of the pages to find it. This book must have thousands of spells." Derek stared at the page without seeing what was written on it.

"It says I need to find these seven plants, and then each new member of the pack has to find their own plant which symbolises them. Someone's written above the polish plant names what is probably the latin scientific name. That should make them easier to find. We could actually do this, Derek!"

"Will Scott let us? I mean, you of course, but me? I'm not as much of a friend to them."

"They love you, Derek. And I love you too." The last person who had said that to him was Cora.

"What plants do you need?"

"I don't know what all of them are. I'll look up their names and save the web pages." Stiles pulled out his phone. He typed quickly while Derek held the book open for him. A few minutes later, he stopped looking at the screen and back up at Derek.

"None of these look that hard to find. I need oak leaves, they symbolise strength; a species of violet that means loyalty; you need lavender, which means purity; oakleaf germanium, which means true friendship; honeysuckle, which means bonds of love, heliotrope, which means complete devotion; and forget-me-nots. The meaning of those is quite self-explanatory."

"We can probably buy all of them at the garden centre and then just pick them," Derek suggested.

"It says that we have to grow them all."

"Oh. Well in that case we can just buy all of the seeds and then spend tomorrow planting them with the pack whilst we tell them what we remembered today."

"Where?"

"There's a big open space outside the Hale house, remember? We played on it when we were little. You can plant the seeds there."

"That would work. My dad has some gardening stuff in the shed, we need to stop round there first. We need to think about what our plants are going to be. Me, you, Lydia, Corey, and Mason all need our own plant."

"Consult the book. I don't know squat about plants."

Stiles turned the page over and found a list of what must have been a hundred different species, all with their meanings written next to them. At the bottom of the double-page read the polish word for turn over, przewracać. On the next side was another list of a hundred or so plants. "I'll have a look at all of the different ones if you make me something to eat. I'm starving."

"Of course. I have chicken nuggets and fries, how does that sound?"

"Great." Stiles was already reading through them.

"How many chicken nuggets do you want?" Derek asked.

"Thirty."

"Ha-ha. How many do you really want?"

"Thirty."

"Oh, you were being serious. Coming right up." Derek went to the collection of kitchen appliances he had installed along with the TV.

Stiles kept looking at the pages, but he couldn't make a decision for anyone's plant. He turned the page over again and instead of a hundred new plants, there were only five. They were as follows:

**_Eidelweiss - Courage_ **

**_Coriander - hidden merit_ **

**_Rhododendron - danger beware_ **

**_Crimson rose - mourning_ **

**_Sage - wisdom_ **

"Derek! The book decided on our symbols for us!" Stiles shouted across the room.

Derek put the food in the oven and then walked to the sofa. "What does it say?"

"It doesn't tell us what each persons' is, it just gives a list of five plants. The first says 'edelweiss, which means courage."

"That could be any of us. What's the next one?"

"Coriander, meaning hidden power. That's probably Corey, he quite literally has the power of hiding."

"I agree. Next?"

"Rhododendron, meaning danger beware. That's gotta be Lydia, she predicts death. Then it's a crimson rose, meaning mourning. I think that's you, Derek."

Derek let out a sigh. "Figures. The last one?"

"Sage, wisdom. That leaves us with two traits, wisdom and courage. Which one is Mason?"

"Courage. You are definitely the wisdom one."

"Really?" One thing Stiles never thought of himself was wise.

"Of course. So that's twelve plants we need to find. Are any of them hard to grow or buy seeds for?"

"I don't think so. Some of them must take a while to grow, but I can hopefully find a way to speed up the process. Can we watch TV?"

"Of course. What do you wanna watch?"

"Netflix, Stranger Things. A new episode just came out. It's really weird and a bit scary watching supernatural programs on TV, because now I know they exist it's like any of them could come true."

"They can't. Believe me." Derek sat down next to Stiles. They began watching the episode, but neither of them could concentrate.

"You were my best friend. I didn't think I'd ever had one of those." Derek spoke after a while.

"I still can be. How about this week we start getting to know each other again. We can go out and you can tell me absolutely everything that's happened to you. It will be fun. In fact, let's turn this off, and start right now." Stiles reached over and turned off the TV. The timer on the oven pinged.

"I'll go get that, and then we can talk." Derek got up from the sofa and went to the make-shift kitchen.

* * *

**A/N: Weird place to leave it, sorry. There will be Sterek next chapter!**

**-Irena**


	7. The Confessions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here’s the Sterek!

Derek came back with an enormous bowl full of chicken nuggets and fries in one arm and ketchup in the other. He set them down on the sofa in between them.

"So. First things first. Tell me what happened when you were a teenager before the fire." Stiles spoke, then put a whole nugget in his mouth.

"Well, up until Paige I was normal. Well, as normal as can be for a werewolf. I went to basketball practise, got stressed out about my grades, got peer-pressured into drinking vodka with my friends. Everything your teenage years are meant to be. Then in my sophomore year of high school, everything went south. First of all, I fell in love with Paige Krasikeva. She was so like you in many ways. Even down to the fact that she was polish."

Stiles's mind paused on the fact that Derek compared his first love him.

"Then Ennis bit her. It was by far the worst day of my life. I held her in my arms and she begged me to let her die. There was black goo coming out of her nose, mouth, ears, and even her eyes. I told her I loved her, and then I snapped her neck. She died instantly, no pain. That was how my beta eyes turned blue." Derek flashed his eyes at him.

"After about three months, I met Kate. She came up to me at a basketball game, told me how handsome I looked, etcetera, etcetera. I was so cut up over Paige's death that I was willing to go to anyone who could offer me any sort of comfort. She asked me out to a coffee shop, and I accepted.

"At the cafe she asked me questions about my family, my house, you know. All the stuff you need to know if your planning on burning the place down with everyone in it. And my stupid ass answered every single one of her questions. If I hadn't, if I had just ended it there then maybe they would all still be alive."

"No, they wouldn't. Kate would have found out another way. You are not to blame for anything she did. Understand?"

"Yeah, I know. I still can't help but feel guilty, you know?"

"I know. What happened next?"

Derek continued the story. "After the third date with Kate she suggested that we go back to her place. I couldn't really believe what was happening. I remember thinking, why is this beautiful woman going out with me, and am I really about to lose my virginity?

"So she took me back to her apartment and we had sex. I was sixteen, she was twenty-five. In the eyes of the law I am technically a rape victim." Stiles took his hand in his own.

"I had told her that my aunts, uncles, cousins, and one of my grandparents were going to be visiting, and I told her the date. I told her absolutely every piece of information she needed. The night of the fire was the one-month anniversary of the day I met Kate, and the day my world quite literally went up in flames.

"The only reason Laura and I survived was because we went for a walk in the woods. We got maybe five miles away when we smelled the smoke. We ran back as fast as we could but the house was already up in flames.

"Now, there is something I haven't told you before about Laura. She had been in a very serious relationship from ages eighteen to twenty with a man called Tobias Walsh. She became pregnant when she was nineteen, and gave birth when she was twenty."

"She had a baby?" Stiles could imagine Laura as a mother. When he was young he remembers her bossing him around, but in an affectionate, almost maternal way.

"Yes. She was an amazing mother, despite being so young. Her daughter was called Emily." Derek's voice wobbled over the child's name.

"What happened to her?"

"When we got back to the house Laura started screaming for her baby. It was horrible. She had left her with our aunt Mary who also had a baby, a boy called Mathias.

"Laura ran into the house after Emily, but I could see that the house was unstable and it would be too dangerous to run in, even for a werewolf. I followed her and pulled her back only just fast enough to avoid getting crushed by a falling wall.

"When the fire department arrived I was still gripping on to Laura's waist to stop her going back in. She was distraught. Her hands had third degree burns on them and she didn't let them heal for a week. She must have been in agony and she never even took a painkiller.

"My niece Emily Hale died, along with my parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Cora must have made it out of the house before we arrived, and made a dash for it all the way to Mexico.

"Laura and I fled as soon as we had given the police our statement, and headed for New York. We stayed there for three years, and only returned because of the spirals on the deer.

"I have lost nearly everyone close to me in the last decade. I am so, so glad that now I have someone other than Peter and my sister Cora -who's barely ever here, to talk to, and to share memories with. So, what happened to you after the spell?"

Stiles tried to remember. "I think I just went to my room and cried for three days straight. I refused to eat; I didn't talk; I barely slept. My dad begged me to say something, anything, for ages. It took me weeks to be able to force out a few words.

"I got better though. By the time I got to middle school I was no longer the kid who's mom died. I was just this annoying hyperactive spaz, as you might say. I did well in some classes that interested me, and completely flunked the ones that didn't. I met Scott when he had an asthma attack during our first lacrosse match. After that we were virtually inseparable.

"I also met Lydia, who was this really hot girl that everyone wanted to be like. She completely ignored me, but I still thought I had a shot. That was when I came up with the plan to make Lydia fall in love with me. And hey, it worked. Eventually."

"How did you two break up again? I thought you were going strong." Derek asked.

"Well we dated for about a year, but then I don't know, it just got a little too boring and difficult. She was at MIT, I was training at the FBI. It was a long distance relationship, and we just couldn't make it work. We vowed to talk on the phone every night so we wouldn't lose touch, and I think that was the big mistake.

"Most of what I was doing was classified, so all I could tell her was stuff like what I ate for lunch. The stuff she was learning I didn't understand. We would sit there on the phone for a maximum of half an hour each night, grasping at things to say. We couldn't even have phone sex because we both shared a room with someone. Without the supernatural stuff going on we realised we didn't really have any common interests other than sex, and than only happened when we went back to beacon hills for one weekend a month. And I _need_ more sex than that, I'm sorry.

"So we mutually broke up. We just said that it wasn't working, we both agreed, and stayed friends.

"Hey Derek, did you date anyone other than Paige, Kate, Jennifer, and Braeden?" Stiles stuffed another two chicken nuggets in his mouth.

Derek hesitated. "Yes, one more person. Their name was Jamie. We broke up a couple of months ago."

"What was she like?"

"Nice. Too nice. It's unrealistic to pursue a relationship with someone who doesn't know you're a werewolf, and I wasn't going to drag them down into something that could get someone killed. So I took them to a nice-ish restaurant, and told them that it wasn't going to work out between us. They started tearing up, so I practically ran away like the jerk that I am."

"You're not a jerk. And you were acting in his best interests."

"His?" Derek looked surprised.

"No-one replaces the pronoun she with they unless they want to hide the person's gender without lying."

"You caught me."

"Why did you though? There's no shame in being bi, or pan, or whatever you are." Stiles hated himself for being excited by this new information. If Derek wasn't straight, then that would mean he at least had a small chance at dating him.

"I know there isn't. But you also can't deny that being bisexual is less accepted than heterosexuality."

"I know. But hey, after I broke up with Lydia I did some experimenting myself. Now I have a semi-awkward relationship with three of the guys in my class."

"So what are you then? Bi?" Stiles swore he saw a flash of hope in his eyes.

"I prefer the term whoever-takes-my-fancy-sexual. So much easier." Derek laughed.

"What? It makes sense, and it's so much easier than anything else. I tried to fit myself into one of the normal categories, but this man just ain't your normal type of guy. I'm indefinable!"

"That you are."

Stiles realised that he had just come out to the first person who actually mattered to him. He hadn't even told Scott yet. Derek was realising that this was the first time he had come out to anyone, period.

"Do you wanna watch a movie?" Derek said.

"Yeah, why not. How does ready player one sound?"

"What's that?"

"You've never seen it?! Oh, of course you've never seen it. You're Derek." Derek swatted him over the head as he reached for the remote.

Stiles found the movie and pressed play. Then he leaned back and watched.

On the outside, he was as cool as a cucumber. On the inside, his mind was racing. Derek was bi. Derek liked guys. Derek might possibly like him. Holy shit now buried high school fantasies were rushing into his head of what sex with Derek would be like.

"Stiles, you can be very forgetful sometimes." Derek said. He picked up the bowl of junk food and put it on the floor.

"What did I forget?" Stiles asked nervously.

"That werewolves have super heightened senses."

Derek then put his hand around the back of Stiles's neck, a vice-versa of their position for most of the day. It felt hot against Stiles's skin. He felt his heart rate speed up and his thoughts turn to _ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod is this actually happening?!_

Derek held Stiles's face inches away from his own. From this close up Stiles could see his reflection in his childhood friend's blown pupils.

"Jestem taki zadowolony, że Cię znalazłem, Mieczysław." _I'm so glad I found you, Mieczysław._

_"_ Ja też." _me too._

Derek took that for confirmation, and pressed their lips together for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sterek! Yay! Next chapter’s smut.
> 
> -Irena

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me what you all think. If anyone can speak Polish better than google translate, then please, comment below and I’ll change it.
> 
> -Irena


End file.
